Have you ever been pushed in a toboggan or sled, that starts slow, then suddenly it’s going 60 kilometers/hour and you’re hanging on for dear life, trying not to crash into two little three year-olds at the bottom of the hill, or worse, the oncoming truck that’s on the road just past the hill? That, my colleagues, is acceleration. And if you’ve ever run a business, you’ve probably felt that exact sensation.
Acceleration, in physics terms, is the rate of change of velocity over time. In business terms, it’s that moment when the project finally gets approved, the team starts moving, clients start calling, orders stack up, and you realize, “Oh no… we’re actually doing this.”
Welcome back to another edition of Physics Friday, where I continue my mission to make Newton proud by applying his laws of motion to the chaos we call work. Today’s topic: acceleration. Buckle up, because things are about to move quickly.
Acceleration Is Not Just Speed
Let’s get nerdy for a second. Speed is how fast you’re going. Acceleration is the rate at which your speed is changing.
Translation? Speed is your business cruising at 60 km/h. Acceleration is the force you apply when you floor it – or when someone throws you a funding round, a new product launch, or a poorly timed merger.
I’ve seen teams stuck in neutral for months. Meetings, strategy decks, survey after survey, still no movement. Then, one day, someone flips a switch, and suddenly everything is urgent. Tasks move, people scramble, Slack explodes, and someone finally remembers to update the SOP from 2018.
Acceleration kicks in.
And here’s the kicker, it’s not always voluntary. Sometimes it’s gravity. Sometimes it’s panic. And sometimes, it’s just a highly caffeinated CEO who refuses to watch another quarter slip by.
Acceleration Feels Different for Everyone
Let me paint a picture. Same business, same goal, same acceleration – but different reactions.
- Your marketing lead? Excited. Buzzing. Already launching five A/B tests and three new campaigns.
- Your ops team? Frantically trying to scale the onboarding process that was originally built for two customers a month.
- Your finance person? Crying gently into their spreadsheet, and wanting to put a stop to all the urgency.
Acceleration, while universal, is deeply personal.
Which is why leadership in times of acceleration isn’t about telling everyone to go faster. It’s about making sure people don’t fly off the track.
Acceleration Without Direction = Chaos
You can accelerate a business in any direction. But if that direction isn’t aligned with your strategy, your values, or let’s be honest, reality, then all you’ve done is create elegant, well-documented chaos. You’ll have dashboards, KPIs, retrospectives, and 18 people trying to figure out how you ended up selling to the wrong customer in the wrong market with the wrong pricing model.
Acceleration must be paired with structure. With steering. With some very honest conversations that start with, “Are we even ready for this?”
Signs Your Business Is Accelerating
You might not realize that acceleration is happening until it has already begun. Here are a few clues:
- Someone says, “We’ll need to hire ten people. Immediately.”
- Your weekly standup becomes a daily standup, which somehow evolves into two standups a day (I’ve both lived through and caused this).
- Your Gantt chart looks like a spiderweb on steroids.
- Someone mentions a “pilot project” that turns into a company-wide initiative before the pilot is even scoped.
- People promise to “eliminate the red tape” to ensure timelines are met.
If this sounds familiar, you’re probably in an accelerated state. It’s thrilling. It’s exhausting. And, like any good roller coaster, it’s better when everyone’s buckled in.
My Acceleration Story: “We’re Scaling Now”
Earlier in my career, I worked with a healthcare company that had great people, good products, and a fantastic environment. They’d spent months refining their strategy. We’d gained clarity on the goals and KPIs, aligned the departments, and even updated the organizational chart to reflect the future direction.
Then we got a massive deal, well, actually two! And just like that, we were accelerating.
I remember the moment. The CEO was visiting, and we had just concluded an informal chat. In a matter of minutes, they received an email announcing that we had won an RFP to expand our footprint into another province, and immediately after (not 10 minutes, I swear), a phone call confirmed that both boards had approved a separate acquisition. Both projects fell within my scope. I remember the question, “Are you ready?”
In that moment, every muscle in my ops-brain tensed. Scaling isn’t a switch. It’s not a “we’re ready or not” moment. It’s a process, a transition, and most importantly, it’s a change in velocity over time – Newton would’ve clapped.
Our velocity? Zero to 100 in two weeks.
What followed was a blur of system upgrades, hiring surges, build-outs, customer visits, and a lot of “we’ll fix that later.” (Spoiler: Later, in some cases, it was either forgotten, or bit us 6 months down the road.) But the biggest lesson? Acceleration reveals the cracks. It doesn’t cause them, it just shines a spotlight.
How to Lead Through Acceleration
When your business starts accelerating, here’s what matters most:
- Visibility: You can’t manage what you can’t see. Dashboards, standups, and honest updates keep you from flying blind.
- Clarity: Everyone needs to know why you’re accelerating, where you’re going, and what success looks like. Otherwise, you get motion without meaning.
- Resilience: Acceleration tests your systems. But more importantly, it tests your people. Are they burning out, or are they building momentum? Check in. A lot.
- Friction: Sometimes, the most brilliant move is easing off the gas. Not every part of your business is built to accelerate at the same rate. It’s okay to slow down to fix what matters.
Final Thoughts: The Laws Still Apply
Newton’s Second Law says: F = ma, force equals mass times acceleration.
In business terms? The bigger your company (mass), the more force it takes to accelerate. That force might be funding, leadership, urgency, or sheer willpower. However, don’t forget that acceleration comes at a cost.
Sometimes the most brilliant move is not more acceleration, but better alignment. Sometimes it’s not just about speed, but about structure. And sometimes, it’s just reminding yourself and your team that acceleration is exciting, but only if everyone survives the ride.
So the next time your business feels like a sled flying downhill, snow blinding you in your face, and someone yelling “go faster!” from the sidelines, remember this:
You don’t need to fear acceleration. You just need to steer it.
Happy Physics Friday. And remember – it’s not the velocity that gets you, it’s the sudden acceleration without a plan.